Looking At The Trade Charts

Since it appears this weekend's Eagles discussion is going to be dominated by talk of hypothetical trades, I thought it might be useful to put together a couple of charts showing the draft trade value of two-pick packages.  I did two charts, one with the traditional, Jimmy Johnson derived draft trade values, and one using the "new" trade chart PFT posted last year, which is supposed to account for some of the issues with the insane salaries guaranteed the first few picks.

Note that there are a lot of "TBDs" in these charts.  That's because we won't know the exact draft order until the compensatory picks are announced.  But since those only affect the lower-round picks, for now we can call this close enough.

Also, for the very last pick, I assumed for now that we were getting the Patriots' current fifth-rounder.  That may or may not end up being accurate, but that's where that value comes from.

 

One of the interesting things I find in looking at these charts is how little impact, say, a third-round choice has on first-round position.

Under either chart, if the Eagles packaged their first #1 and their #3, that would only be enough to move them up about four spots.  I'm not saying these charts are gospel and there are plenty of factors that come into play -- most importantly the issue of whether or not there's someone in the third round you really want to take with that pick -- but we should all keep in mind that if someone says, "There's no way I'd give up a #1 and a #3 for Boldin," that should be translated as, "There's no way I'd give up the 17th pick for Boldin, rather than just the 21st pick."

I'm not saying that's not a defensible position.  Maybe there will be a guy available at #17 that we really, really want.  I'm just saying we should understand exactly what it means. 

And as a final note on that, adding a fifth-round pick to that package is perhaps about enough to get you to #16.

Now, obviously, that's not totally the way things work.  Mike Ditka notwithstanding, you can't trade your whole draft for one guy.  But it's still an interesting exercise.

Another interesting thing to note is the discontinuity that comes between the #16 and #17 picks in the new trade chart.  Players taken in the top half of the first round can be signed to six-year deals, although agents hate doing that.  That gives the club more leverage later on for getting the guy to sign an extension if he pans out. 

Under the old chart, the Eagles could trade their first #1 and a #2 to get to about the 13th pick.  Under the new chart, it's only a jump to the 16th.  In fact, there appears to be only about a one-slot difference (16th vs. 17th) for what the Eagles can do with a combination of their #2 and either of their #1s under the new chart.